Social Media Background Checks

by K B , updated on November 10, 2020

There is such a lot of talk around about social media background checks, where employers check your profile out on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like. But how many do, and how seriously do they take the information they can access, and more to the point, what are they actually looking for?

I recently co-authored “What do employers really want?” with James Evangelidis, a very good friend of mine. We were curious so we asked a few questions of a number of employers we interviewed. Here’s what they said:

Employer 1

 

Q:  Do you check people out on social media and what do you think when you do?

A: “This is the big mistake of the younger generation. Everything is fair game and they need to learn that if I saw behavior that I felt didn’t fit with the team, or I discovered things about them that reflected negatively on their employer, or there is a pattern of behaviour that’s likely to lead to work performance issues, then they won’t be getting the job. People should assume that I am checking them out.”

Employer 2

Q: As part of your hiring procedure, do you routinely check people out on MySpace or Facebook?

A: No we don’t check

Q What if you became aware of something that was compromising an employee on a public forum?

A: “If it was a public facing position then we would have to talk to them about it because undoubtedly it could be seen publicly. To a degree what people get up to in their own time is up to them, but when that private persona interferes with that corporate requirement then there has to be an intervention, especially if they are representing the company as part of that corporate persona. Fundamentally I don’t really care. Can they do their job? Are they able to do their job? Will they do the job? Are they in a compromising position? If they are not part of the public face (or they are not seen as representing) the company, then I don’t have a problem with it.”

Q:  Do you check people out on social media and what do you think when you do?

Employer 3

A: “I wouldn’t want an employee’s personal life to be reflecting on the business, especially because we are a public company. For me it’s about having the right appearance!. We check potential employees on Facebook etc. It’s really important people be aware of this because the internet is so powerful.”

Employer 4

A: “We don’t do those sorts of checks. If something came to my attention of course we would look at it. Then I think you would be bound to take those things into consideration, generally however I think these are a social tool, not a business tool.”

Employer 5

A: “No I have never thought of it, I will normally, depending how long they have been in their previous employment, ring up three of their previous employers.”

Employer 6

Q: What would you do if you found something negative about an employee on social media?

A: “I would put it on the table in front of them and ask them about it. You would at least give this person the opportunity to explain. We haven’t been checking these forums as a matter of course, but we are doing in more often, particularly with contractors or recruitment consultants.”

So what’s the point I am trying to make here?

Yes you will be checked out.

Always assume that anyone checking you out is making a subjective judgment, what some people thinks fits with the team, others may think is bad form.

Always assume that whoever is checking as part of a reference check will only have a partial picture of what you’ve been up to, good or bad. They will never know the context until they meet you, and depending what it is, they may not even be able to question you about what they saw to raise their eye-brows.

While by law employers are not able to discriminate, how would you know if you missed out on a job based on something they personally didn’t like?

You could liken this stuff to simple reference checking, but it is reference checking on steroids, given that employers can gather a lot more personal information than they’d ever be able to ask a referee.

On Thomas Shaw’s blog recently, he posted information about an application that will allow you to click to allow employers and recruiters access to your LinkedIn and Facebook profiles. You could soon find them soon on careers sites.

One click is all simple and convenient, but when friends can do things like post unflattering photos of you on the wild night of your high school break up, would you really want your Facebook profile to be your resume?

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Mind your job interview (body) language

by K B , updated on November 10, 2020

How important is body language in interviews? You’ll read in a lot of studies or guides around presentation skills that say it is the most important thing to your success, that words account for 7% of meaning, tone of voice counts for 38% of meaning and body language accounts for 55%.

These are pretty startling statistics, and they do make you sit up and take notice. But it’s a pretty bizarre statement when you think about it, as this mob points out. They suggest that if we derive 93% of meaning from things other than words, then we wouldn’t need to say anything in order to be understood.

How important is body language in interview?

I could write a prescriptive list on where to place your hands, how many hand gestures to use, how long your handshake should be and how much eye contact is acceptable, but then I would have to write an equally long list about where the opposite is true.

Some interviews are more formal, some are not. Rules for one person, may not work for another. If you are in an interview in a formal setting to start gesticulating wildly and rearranging the plant pots to make your point, may not win you brownie points. But then, someone interviewing you in a coffee shop might love the way that you pick up the spoon and wave it around.

How do you manage your body language in interview?

I try to keep it simple.

When I coach people on interview skills, I look to see whether what my client is saying is consistent with how they are saying it, and what they look like when they are saying it.

Think of it this way. I’ll never believe a footballer’s scripted and well worded TV apology after he’s been bad on a big night out. And the reason I won’t is that the words are often not his. He’ll be reading them out. His tone will be monotonous and he won’t look at the camera. He’d have more luck with me if he looked me in the eye, put his hand on his heart, and said three words: “I’m really sorry.”

It’s the same with interviews. If you are using examples that excite you then this comes out in your tone, your body language plus your face lights up when you talk. It’s written all over your body without you even thinking about it. Everything lines up and that’s when people believe you.

I see getting body language “right” in interview as more about confidence in yourself, the right preparation and a desire to be in the interview rather than going through the motions.

If your body language is not right for your interviewer, it’s possibly not right for the job.

PS:  If you’re curious about the body language research, it’s by Albert Mehrabian It’s derived from some experiments he where he looked and attitudes and feelings. Here’s what he states on his website: “Total Liking = 7% Verbal Liking + 38% Vocal Liking + 55% Facial Liking. Please note that this and other equations regarding relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages were derived from experiments dealing with communications of feelings and attitudes (i.e., like, dislike). Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable.

If you think about the applicability of this research to an interview setting, think about this when you start to talk about how much you’d like the job. A long scripted spiel may have a whole lot less impact than you emphatically saying “I’d really like this job”

Need to get ahead of the pack for your next interview?

Get our free e-book The 7 Deadly Sins to Avoid at Job Interview!

Deborah Barit wrote this book. She is one of Australia’s leading interview coaches.

To get your free e-book and some of our best interview tips direct to your inbox, simply click on this link.

Here’s what happy readers said about the e-book and interview tips:

“Deborah Barit is a very smart lady…She is good at figuring out what an employer is looking for. It’s like she has ESP, with her help in preparing, I found no surprises in a recent interview and I was prepared for every question….” Cathy, Leichhardt, NSW

“Because I read so many of your posts, I feel as if you were my personal employment coach. I start my new position in two weeks. I had so many obstacles to overcome and each day you posted a solution to my dilemma and how to improve my search. Thank you so much for your input and PLEASE continue to do what you do!”

Click here to get access to the e-book.

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More weak (and pesky) resume words

by K B , updated on November 10, 2020

Avoid these weak resume words

I really loved this post by the Avid Careerist, Donna Svei. She writes on one of those pesky weak resume words: “utilize”. As Donna says, we never “utilize” the word “utilize” when we speak, so why should we “utilize” it on a resume?

Good point. We use this language when we are trying to sound impressive on our resumes, we don’t know what we should put, or where we reflect the cloudy language we often find in position descriptions.

One application I wrote a few months ago asked that the candidate have “high level legal experience”. The role was for a lawyer. We had to check with the panel convener about what this meant. “High level – meant running a case, from the first meeting with a client, to making final recommendations”. So now we know and I’m glad we checked.

Like Donna I have a few resume pests of my own.

outcomes

agreed outcomes

liaised

in order to

facilitate

responsible for

actioned

address

behaviours

Have a look at this post on action words for resumes, if you are in any way confused.

Read Donna’s full post here

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How to lose a job on Twitter

by K B , updated on November 10, 2020

 

While I’m on my perch about the benefits of Twitter, you do need to be smart about how you use it.

If you muck up, you can muck up publicly, damage your online brand and ping people off when you use it. I’ve since un-followed a person because of what I’m about to describe and I suspect many other people will as well. Here’s what happened.

I check my @box on Twitter a few times a day to see who’s been trying to speak with me. (An @box is like your email inbox) A few weeks ago I received the message below. For those of you who don’t use Twitter, “@” is where people leave you a message. It appears on their profile, and you can respond by doing the same on your profile. This is the public conversation you may want to have on Twitter.

This is the offending tweet.

“@interviewIQ Scientist needs job now, find my profile on LinkedIn.”

I thought that it was interesting that she sent me this, so I checked her profile. She had dozens of people she was spamming like this. Her first page of tweets had the same message to 10 random people, not many of them recruiters.

The reason she did this was to get people like me to look at her profile, and not just rely on her being at the top of my rapidly descending list of tweets. But it is plain silly on so many levels. Firstly she looks desperate which is a job searching no no. Secondly she shows that she hadn’t taken the time to work out what I did or what any other person did. She was just spamming everyone. Thirdly she’s showing both poor communication skills and poor networking skills.

I know this sounds harsh, and it makes me wonder if I’ve annoyed people in the same way. While Twitter seems easy to use, it does take a while for people to understand what Twitter is really about when you first start out. But I do think good networking rules apply, if you want to make the most out of it.

Online relationships are fragile. You are summed up pretty quickly on Twitter. Be warned.

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How to find a job on Twitter, or get started at least….

by K B , updated on November 10, 2020

I love Twitter and not because I’m an exhibitionist with a short attention span. I love Twitter because it’s an amazing social search engine. I follow people in HR, employers, recruitment consultants, my clients, people who follow me, and lots of other people who just keep me amused. People are always tweeting interesting information, with links back to blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn and the like.  They tell me and the rest of the universe what they like, who they talk to and what they’re up to.  Well, the bits they’d like me to know at least. So I use Twitter a lot for ideas and contacts. But there are lots of other uses for Twitter as well, including finding a job on it.

If you are struggling to find a job, or even just randomly looking, you’d be mad if you overlook Twitter, even if you can’t stand the thought of exposing yourself on social media. You don’t actually have to expose yourself, to get interesting information out of it, or even a job. You can just use it as a research tool. Here are a few basic tips and things to think about to get you started.

Top Twitter Job Hunting Tip # 1

Sign on.

You can use your own name if you are open about your job search and happy for people to know. If not use something else.

If you want to use your own name but it’s taken, you could also use a name that represents what you do, your industry or what you’d like to do.

If you don’t want people to know that you are looking for a job, use another name, and set up and use an email address that doesn’t have your name in it.

Top Twitter Job Hunting Tip # 2

Fill in your professional bio. You are only given 160 characters so you’ll need to be precise. Have a look at what I’ve done with mine. I use a mixture of the professional and the personal. You don’t need to write your bio this way, but for me it’s a nice point of connection for anyone who chooses to talk to me.

Bio:  Careers journalist, job search and interview coach, resume writer, author, random tweeter and SEO online profile tweaker. Prefers salt to chlorine on hot days.

Top Twitter Job Hunting Tip # 3

Link your URL back to your LinkedIn profile, website or blog if you have one. Make it easy for people to find out more about the information you’d like to present publicly about yourself.

Top Twitter Job Hunting Tip # 4

Learn how it works. Unlike LinkedIn, linking up on Twitter is not so personal. You can choose to follow whomever you like. Sometimes people follow you back. Sometimes they don’t. Don’t take it personally they don’t. It’s easy to be swamped by too many people.

Top Twitter Job Hunting Tip # 5

Don’t panic.

With “@”, “#”, “RT” and “FF” just to name a few, a Twitter conversation can seem like a jargon convention for the hyperactive, where you’re left on the sidelines. Here are a few quick translations.

–  @ is a message you can post on your profile in acknowledgement to someone else, or when you are having a public conversation.

–  # helps tweeters organise their tweets so other people can find them. Sometimes groups of people use this to have a conversation. I plan to join #blogchat at some time, for tips on blogging.

–  “RT” allows you to tweet out someone else’s tweet, that you may think is useful

–  “FF” is a random twitter code – Follow Friday. It’s a way of acknowledging people who you like, or who have helped you.

There are hundreds more than what I have just mentioned. That’s the thing with Twitter, cracking the code can get you hooked into it.

Top Twitter Job Hunting Tip # 5

What to tweet?

If you want people to follow you as well, you’ll need to say something. Otherwise you’ll look like a spammer. If you tweet about work, be careful though about whether your employer has any privacy policies. Some are explicit about who can be public spokes people for companies and Twitter can be in the public domain. Even if your employer doesn’t have privacy policies, you saying something about your work may simply not be acceptable. Plus it could be sackable.

There are also dumb things people have done on Twitter, to get them dismissed.

Have a read of this post by resume bear. It includes things such as:

Bragging about fooling your boss into thinking you worked late the night before.

Bragging about using twitter in work time when it’s not allowed.

Talking about when they will resign

I’ll be adding on to this list on this blog as time goes on.

If you post links you can use URL shortening services like bit.ly

When you tweet, do remember that Twitter is public and becomes part of the public record.  Recruiters look at what in the public domain about you.  Digital screening is becoming more and more popular. So a good rule of thumb is to remember everything on the internet can be archived. At some point it may come back to bite you.

Top Twitter Job Hunting Tip # 6

You don’t have to use Twitter publicly to use it to job search. You can set up a profile, protect your tweets, or not even tweet, and follow anyone you like for information.

I’ve found Twitter works for me when I engage in a conversation with another tweeter, but anything that I want to discuss privately, that I think could be confidential for the other person or myself, I say offline. It’s a good rule of thumb.

Who should you follow on Twitter to help you get a job?

You’ll be surprised who you find here. Many job boards, recruitment consultants, major employers and HR managers are on Twitter. You may sign up to a job board and receive an email once a day or once a week, however job boards will often blast out jobs on Twitter as they have them listed. This means you get first jump on jobs before other people do.

Use Twitter to network to find a job

Like LinkedIn you can follow colleagues, friends and people in your broader network. It’s a way of keeping what they’re up to in the present for you. Again remember if you follow them, they can click on your profile and see your tweets. So do be mindful of what you are sharing. If you want to make contact, Twitter makes it easy to pick up a thread of a conversation and have a point in common.

I’ve also known people who’ve needed staff really quickly to tweet out the job to their network. Those jobs have never landed on a job board.

The bottom line with Twitter is that it’s only one job searching tool of many. More and more recruiters and employers are using these to track you down, or check you out, so it’s worthwhile at least understanding these, even if you choose not to use them.

There are more advanced Twitter tools job search tools that you can use. However if you’re like most people I know, you’ve barely thought about LinkedIn, let alone Twitter at this stage. So I’ll introduce these gently 🙂

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Six new reasons to use LinkedIn

by K B , updated on November 10, 2020

LinkedIn has more than 60 million users worldwide. That fits the bill of scarily big to me. That’s a population size roughly three times the size of Australia, twice the size of Canada, 14 times the size of New Zealand and71 times the size of Fiji. In fact LinkedIn is now clocking in around the size of the UK, if not bigger.

I present you these numbers because I do like to lecture people. I like to think I am quite good at it 🙂 , although some unkind people have called it nagging. I am kindly going to spare you that this post and just present you a sample of results from one LinkedIn profile.  I have changed the names to protect the innocent. But here’s what happened to a friend of mine after being on LinkedIn for a week, or so…..

Hi John

I found your profile on LinkedIn. We are currently looking for a Level 2 help desk support role for an insurance client in Singapore. Could you let me know if this appeals? Please email me for further discussion.

Regards,

Amanda

Your LinkedIn profile has been viewed by 5 people in the last 7 days, including:

  • Someone in the Executive Leadership function in the Human Resources industry from Sydney Area, Australia
  • Executive at Softenger Singapore Pte. Ltd
  • Domain Specialist at Telstra
  • Someone in the Consulting function in the Staffing and Recruiting industry from Melbourne Area, Australia
  • Someone in the Science And Research function in the Mining & Metals industry from Bendigo Area, Australia

I am not going to point you to his LinkedIn profile, which needs a good tidy up. Have a think about this, though. If a bad LinkedIn profile can score some good viewings and a phone call or two, plus an international job discussion, imagine what a well thought out one can do.

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